


to see a world

by Eisoj5



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Gen, sort-of character studies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-08
Updated: 2016-01-08
Packaged: 2018-05-12 16:00:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5671801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eisoj5/pseuds/Eisoj5
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Our new trio's perspectives on Jakku; not precisely chronological with the events of the movie.</p><p>Or: Who doesn't like sand?</p>
            </blockquote>





	to see a world

*****

FN-2187—no, _Finn_ , trudges over dune after dune . . . after endless dune. It wouldn’t be so bad if he had managed to salvage the survival kit from the TIE fighter, with its canteen of tinny water and rain collector (though he’s fairly certain there is no such thing as rain on Jakku; he doesn’t know if there’s any morning dew to speak of.)

Or if Poe hadn’t died in the crash.

He could really use the company. Being alone for the first time in . . . ever . . . is daunting. Even if no one talked to him, he always had someone at his back.

In training, he’s hiked this kind of terrain before, slogging it out in the full weight of his armor, always keeping his blaster ready. Has run through simulations in sand; fighting the way his boots wanted to sink, every step its own battle of resistance.

Jakku’s sun reflects brutally off the dunes. Finn is tempted to shed more clothing, to feel what little wind there is on his skin, but knows it will strip every drop of moisture from him instead, and he’ll end up a dried-out husk to be picked over by the insects and scavengers.

He marches on.

*****

Rey loves the desert with a fierceness she cannot explain, for all her dreams of oceans and islands and endless green and blue. She has sat in the shade of the wrecks of war and time and dug her bare toes into the fine cool sand. Has used it to polish this or that shining piece of unsalvageable metal to decorate her otherwise spartan home; scrubbed up more pieces of machinery than she wants to count. Counting is for food, and waiting.

She wonders, sometimes, where all the sand could have come from. As far as she knows, Jakku’s always been a desert planet, forever scoured by wind, but when she turns a lens on some scattered grains she finds tiny fossils, little alien sculptures of shell and bone. The shell makes her envision the ocean again, but she has no idea why.

Lying on her stomach in a valley between dunes, Rey inspects an anthill; the ants drag up miniscule discards that catch her eye. Sometimes there are beads, of all colors and materials, escaped from a traders’ satchel or scattered from someone’s broken necklace. These she drops in a jar until it’s full, and then she takes that in to Niima Outpost to sell. She’s found diodes and bits of wire, nothing worth taking to Plutt, even collected together but enough to string together on the inside of her walker, where they flicker like stars.

*****

The stars are doubled and blurry when Poe wakes up, shivering, sore all over, and utterly lost. The dune under his back still holds some of the heat of the day; if it wasn’t for the smell of dust on the wind and the sight of infinite, moonlit sand, he could almost imagine he’s lying on a beach.  

He takes a few deep breaths to get calm, and then tries to figure out three things: why the stars are blurry; how he ended up splattered in the sand; and how in blazes he’s going to get off this blasted planet.

Stars: from what he remembers about Jakku—the name pops into his head—it doesn’t have the kind of atmosphere which would make them dance in quite that way, so that probably means it’s his eyes, or head.

Sitting up suggests it’s his head. Getting to his feet makes that a sure bet.

A couple of shaky breaths later, looking around provides no clues as to the second thing. He’s starting to recall a young, handsome stormtrooper at his back, first marching him towards an uncertain future and then, flying towards freedom. But there’s no wreckage to be seen other than his ejector seat and the deflated chute. He calls out the nickname he gave the stormtrooper; would yell out the man’s number but can’t think of what it is.

He gives up searching the immediate area when his teeth start chattering. In Tuanul the night before it hadn’t been this cold, but then he’d been inside the tents or running or on his knees next to the burning ruins of the village.

The third thing, then.

He stares up at the stars to orient himself; the rest of his squadron might find it archaic, but Poe has always loved learning the ancient ways of navigating, and makes it a point to memorize at least the fixed stars of the planets he visits. He hopes the Force is with him, picks a direction, and starts walking.

*****

Kylo Ren really fucking hates sand.

After Jakku, he shakes out his mask for days. He has no idea how these coarse, rough, irritating particles got _everywhere_.

*****

**Author's Note:**

> Deserts are beautiful and amazing and Anakin (and Kylo) are haters. :) I miiight have a little more in me to write about the trio's relationship to sand?
> 
> Also, the anthill thing is a for-reals trick I learned when I lived in the American Southwest and taught archaeology. It's pretty cool.
> 
> Title is from William Blake--the full line is "To See a World in a Grain of Sand."


End file.
